A Data Standards Weblog

9 entries categorized "ACORD 2020"

Thursday, 04 September 2014

Just to let you know that we are beginning to create a new community for members on the ACORD website called 20/20 and you may have seen it under the COMMUNITY tab. It is under development but we will personally invite senior executives of member firms to participate. We plan to engage our solution provider leaders as well as their clients in order to better serve the industry. While it is an open conversation, it will stress future plans. Spero Zacharias, Senior Vice President of Chubb chairs our 20/20 program at the request of our Board of Directors. I will keep you posted on our progress from time to time and help you to be sure that your leaders are on-line and connected.

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

ACORD (www.acord.org) released a new Strategic Analysis on eSignatures and e-Delivery in the insurance industry. Developed by international law firm Locke Lord LLP (www.lockelord.com) at the request of ACORD, the document provides an overview of the legal requirements, and best practices for implementation.

"We worked with Locke Lord to create this document at the request of a number of AUGIE participants and others to serve as a guide for agents, distributors and carriers who want to use or enable electronic signatures but are not sure how to get started. The biggest issue is the lack of comfort with the legal requirements and the inability to establish a process or choose a technology. While ACORD is not providing legal advice in any way, by commissioning Locke Lord, a firm which has much experience in this space, we feel we can help support the industry and our membership" says Marcia Berner, Director, Implementation Services, ACORD.

The Strategic Analysis suggests that implementers start with one process and product. To further support such efforts, it lists a number of general best practices, as well as specific ones for insurers and producers.

For example, at a higher level, it recommends that "emails should be sent with links to a secure site" and that it's essential to determine a bounce-back policy. More specifically, it tells insurers to "develop an efficient method to review and verify Producers' requests for approval of their Electronic Signature or electronic delivery processes.

By fostering a greater understanding of the legal requirements for both Electronic Signatures and electronic delivery of documents, the Strategic Analysis serves as a foundational document for insurers and producers. It also provides definitions of commonly used terms and includes overviews of both ESIGN and UETA, special considerations for using voice signatures, and subjects such as record retention and admissibility of evidence in court. It builds upon and broadens previous works by the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) that focused more specifically on the annuities sector.

"Over the past few years, interest and work around eSignatures and eDelivery increased dramatically. Agents and carriers came to us with a strong desire to implement them, but with major concerns about the right way to do both and to work with each other in the process. By talking with both groups, it became clear that both have common questions and concerns mostly based in making sure they are clear on the legal requirements and how to make sure they are met. With ACORD's unique role in the industry, we felt that this was an area in which we could help bring parties together, and it fits nicely into our 2020 initiative, an initiative that is looking towards increased implementation and the future of the industry," concluded Berner.

The Strategic Analysis can be found on the ACORD Knowledge Center at www.acord.org/knowledge and is available to both members and non-members.

In addition, ACORD will be hosting a series of related webinars over the coming months. For a schedule and to register, please visit www.acord.org/knowledge.

Friday, 12 August 2011

Dan Burrus has been a speaker at ACORD and with the IIABA on several occassions and he publishes a newslettter that he shares with clients. I recived this issues from, Jeff Yates (ACT). Jeff says, "I think you will enjoy Daniel Burrus’s latest newsletter. He reminds us that technology-driven business process transformation is a hard trend—it will happen and is happening now. He adds that in this environment the only way to achieve stability is by embracing change as a “continuous and permanent state.” He adds some great food for thought for all of us. This is not a time when we can rest on our laurels, do what we have always done and expect to thrive, even if we do our best to keep doing it better."

Burrus adds that even change itself has changed: “Information and new knowledge now travel around the world at the speed of light, and technological innovation proceeds at close to the speed of light.” He urges us to ask ourselves whether our customers are learning and changing faster than we are and whether we are designing the solutions now that will meet their future needs. Download Burrus Research

Monday, 25 April 2011

Compare and contrast... I've just read one article that says notebook PCs will survive the (re-)emergence of the tablet in the enterprise, and another that says enterprises need to get with the iPad as fast as possible.

Don Reisinger's piece for eWeek enumerates the points against the tablet/iPad (they're not the same thing, but the line gets blurry). One of his points is that iPads aren't as controllable as Windows PC - that is, it's harder for IT departments to restrict what users do with them. iPads are too much fun: they'll lead to reduced productivity.

Over at Gartner, David Willis takes the success of smartphones in the enterprise as a bellwether. Smartphones snuck in under the corporate IT radar. Sneered at as toys, they turned out to be powerful business tools. iPads will infiltrate the organization too, led by salespeople.

What we have here are two very different forecasts, both of which are based, in their own ways, on a common premiss: the restrictiveness of IT departments. Reisinger looks for business benefits associated with tablets and can't find any, while Willis sees the preferences of key influencers as being beneficial in themselves.

I'd like to say I can see both sides of the argument, or can see some middle ground. But I think both accounts miss the central point, which is: What are the apps that would drive a business to invest in tablets as opposed to PCs? What are the user situations that are crying out for iPads? And, if such needs exist, how come they didn't succumb to Windows-based tablets a decade ago?

One obvious app for the iPad, as I've mentioned before on this blog, is ACORD eForms. For some folks, filling out eForms on an iPad with the customer alongside will be an attractive proposition.

Sunday, 10 April 2011

Daniel Burrus’s latest article focuses on how to successfully plan your organization’s strategy during a time of rapid change. It is not enough to be agile, to be proactive or to study the “best practices” of the industry’s best performers, he argues. Instead, it means engaging in “future benchmarking”-- “skipping over today’s best practices and benchmarking what the best practices will be in the visible future, based on hard trends and future certainties.”

Burrus then lays out how to engage in this “future benchmarking”-- look at the hard trends we know will happen and project where your best competitors will be four or five years from now, and determine your course of action based on those insights into the future. Burrus suggests that you can become a creator of change in your industry in this way rather than always trying to react to change that happens “from the outside in.”

Industry data standards provide a platform for your future innovation in many ways. First, they eliminate the spend on what should be a utility. Do you really want to create your own language? Second, they allow you to spend on real marketplace differentiators in products and services. Third, they provide incentives for vendors to invest in solutions because they have a bigger market. Fourth, they allow you to integrate seamlessly into everything else you build or buy. Let's face it, having a cool anything that does not work with everything else is seldom good and we've all been there. Well I could go on... but let's stop here and save a few ideas for future posts.

Burrus is essentially saying that we need to look ahead and not become overly focused on short term gains when longer term investments will have a much bigger payoff, like industry standards I would add.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

I do not have a copy of the full Aite Group report, but the issues addressed in Pat Speer's piece (below) are correct with a few qualifications.

Although I understand the horizontal cooperation observation, insurance industry standards cannot be compared to banking for consumers, credit cards and ATMs. The payload of data required for insurance is huge by contrast. I sometimes hear that the SWIFT banking messages are relatively static. Aside from some of the more simple transactions, SWIFT has a Standards Group as large as ACORD and they are kept very busy publishing and maintaining standards.

I'm glad that Troy mentioned the Plug and Play Consortium (PnP) and the ACORD Framework (Enterprise Models) because these types of initiatives and assets will help close the gaps in standards that result in varied implementations. Historically, software developers viewed industry standards as a means to eliminate 90% of the work and they focused on the extensions. This has become increasingly unacceptable in the emerging plug and play world where developers are integrating many systems. They also want a reliable ACORD Certification process as well.

As for the mission and delivering software, that ship has already sailed. We have been licensing utilities for decades, most recently releasing an ACORD eForm development tool for vendors that integrate forms into systems. Vendors in particular understand economies of scale and the difference between a utility and real value-add in their products. The new ACORD Framework will also become a great tool.

ACORD was created to publish standards and to assist members with implementation. The tremendous growth over the past decade resulted in a larger membership base and added lines of business crossing industry sectors/markets around the world. ACORD will always be an industry-owned nonprofit association publishing and maintaining industry standards. The process may change, but not the underlying mission. Our Standards Committee (Chaired by Monique Hesseling, Zurich), Steering Committees and Working Groups are comprised of our members. And as a recognized SDO (Standards Development Organization), we follow all the rules required for participation, process, Antitrust compliance and Intellectual Property protections.

The Board of Directors also approved the creation of an ACORD 2020 Advisory Committee this year (Chaired by Spero Zacharias, Chubb). It 's goal is to align with the vision, measure progress, identify impediments to implementation and recommend solutions. Doing more to get standards implemented with utilities and related services is becoming increasingly important. It will accelerate the ROI of our collective investment in standards and that's what our members really want to see.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

Martina Conlon posted her view on the Novarica Blog (NOVARICA) and I agree with her. A few comments from me. We are now undergoing a re-organization at ACORD that you will hear more about shortly. In essence we are separating standards development from all of our implementation activities. This will allow us to focus and excel on the development side and provide us with more flexibility and member engagement on implementations. It will also allow us to leverage valuable assets, build utilities and provide services. And our rationale included some of the thinking in Ms.Conlon's post.

The standard ACORD XML transaction format provides big benefit to the industry. It’s a major piece of the solution to enable automated new business processes – providing significant efficiencies to carriers in PL and small to mid commercial markets. Adoption has been strong for portal and AMS transport vendors, which has helped drive carrier adoption. Unfortunately, core system vendors are hesitant to adopt them, which stunts general adoption. Plug and play, SOA and external interfaces could be accelerated and enabled if most vendors chose to support these standards, or even a mapping to these standards.

But ACORD XML also presents some challenges to the industry. Any insurance data standard is going need to be extended as the value and accessibility of new data elements is uncovered. Carriers face the challenge of having to extend the standard themselves, or go through the lengthier formal extension process with the standards body. Accessible and affordable education and support could help in making well designed extensions quickly. If a carrier chooses to add “vehicle color” as an underwriting attribute, it would be great if they could contact a support resource to be advised on the best placement.

Some standards (or starter data models) lack depth in certain lines of business, or subject areas. Knowing that the standard is comprehensive inspires confidence from the carriers and vendors. Too many standard organizations or model vendors prematurely release these assets. Upon review, the carriers identify the holes and label them well-intentioned but incomplete – and don’t bother to revisit the standard or models at a later time.

So, with these challenges, what would help drive the use of data standards and industry models? Finish them before your release them, and then provide accessible, affordable support.

Perhaps more dependence on applications deployed in the cloud or delivered as SaaS will also help drive adoption. For example, Informatica just introduced an integration service that translates ACORD XML to salesforce.com. As integration needs increase, especially around very generic applications, data standards have a better chance or being embraced.

Thursday, 22 April 2010

ACORD 2020 is a research effort to help us create improved future views for ACORD. As we plan for the future, we want be sure that we are in touch with you... our members... and the challenges that you face today and tomorrow. We convened a series of roundtable discussions in 2009 that gathered member comments on global trends as part of this effort. I want to especially thank everyone who participated.

I will be presenting comments from this report in future postings. I will also keep you updated on further ACORD 2020 initiatives. You may use this document to further the conversation and please let me know what you think. Download ACORD Global Trends April 2010

Friday, 11 December 2009

We have convened a series of Roundtable Discussions in 2009 in our office, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. Here is the last one for the year held at Lloyd's of London. We've been talking about ACORD 2020, a vision for the future. I will report more on our findings this year.

ACORD LOMA DAILY NEWS

New Book

My latest book presents the challenges members face when adopting industry standards as well as the opportunities that come as a result. It features my discussions with many people over many years and follows the foundation I set in my first book "The Business Information Revolution".

Industry standards are never adopted in a vacuum. They become part and parcel of all the trials and tribulations managers face in their day to day work. ACORD Standards are always part of a larger software development project that brings along people, priorities and politics. Adopting industry standards isn't simple, but the benefits far outweigh the problems of building and maintaining proprietary alternatives.

I trust that you will appreciate my frankness, identify with some of the challenges and learn from what others have done to pave the way.

Previous Book

This is a PDF version of my book. You have my permission to view, save and print copies for your personal use. Use your browser "Back" button to return to the blog after you visit or print a chapter. If you want a clean copy, it's available at the Amazon bookstore.